It’s that time of the year again when I begin regular visits to the Christmas tree lot at Glengary Square on Westerville Road. The sales lot always opens on the day after Thanksgiving and yesterday was no different than any others.
Everyone who works there knows me and my cameras. When I showed up with only a Canon G11 hanging from my hand there was a quizzical moment of unspoke inquiry about my intentions both for the day and for the rest of the sales season.
Any concern about my intentions disappeared when I pulled the manager aside for a very quick portrait in what appeared to be the last sliver of sunset light navigating its way through the trees along the shores of Alum Creek well west of the lot.
It wasn’t a the best of lighting conditions with his face bright in the sun, the trees settling toward dark shadows and the sky dominating the tones. I underexposed the G11 aperture exposure setting by 1/3rd a stop with the f-stop set to f3.2 to allow for just enough depth of field to cover his face but shallow enough to throw out the background. Shooting with the G11, or almost any point and shoot camera, presents depth of field problems because of the short focal length on the lenses. Even at 2.8, the depth of field can be wide depending upon the focus distance.
I wanted just enough depth and a high enough shutter speed to capture both his bearded face and his disheveled hair blowing in the chilly wind. The camera determined 1/320th of a second at ISO 100. I prefer using the G11 at the lowest possible ISO to keep any chip noise down.
I got just a few frames as he settled out of the awkward moment of having been pulled aside for the portrait and as the sun quickly moving to a position out of the frame. I switched to my iPhone for a second set of photos before moving on to a new subject.
Theimage was processed through Camera RAW, with several layers to bring the sky down in one and darken the edges in another. An additional layer, flattening all the Camera RAW layers, was processed through Topaz Adjust 4 and then set at 30% opacity to lessen the effects which can be overpowering. Another layer was created from the resulting image and sharpened with High Pass filter for the finished version for the Web.
